by Jack Vance
“My name is Gastel Etzwane. I am the son of Dystar the druithine. My mother is the lady Eathre.”
Osso spoke in a menacing voice: “Why did you come here?”
“I came to dissolve my mother’s indenture.”
Osso smiled. “We do not engage in such casual traffic.”
“I carry an ordinance from the Faceless Man.”
Osso grunted. Geacles said smoothly, “Why not? Pay us our money; the woman will be released to you.”
Etzwane made no response. He turned to look up Mirk Valley, where he had never ventured for fear of ahulphs. The women would walk at less than three miles an hour. The Roguskhoi had departed an hour since. Etzwane thought furiously. He looked toward the tannery: destroyed, burnt to the ground. The far sheds where chemicals and dyes were stored still stood. He turned to Ifness and spoke in a low voice: “Will you lend me the trap and the pacers? If I lose them I will pay; I carry sixteen hundred florins.”
“Why do you require the trap?”
“So that I may save my mother.”
“How?”
“It depends upon Osso.”
“I will lend you the trap. What are a pair of pacers, after all?”
Etzwane spoke to Osso: “The Roguskhoi are great wine-drinkers. Give me two large kegs of wine. I will convey them up the valley and deliver them.”
Osso blinked in bewilderment. “You intend to assist their revelries?”
“I intend to poison them.”
“What?” cried Geacles. “And so provoke another attack?”
Etzwane looked to Osso. “What do you say?”
Osso calculated. “You plan to deliver the wine in the trap?”
“I do.”
“What will you pay for the wine? It is our ceremonial liquor; we have none other.”
Etzwane hesitated. Time was too precious to be used haggling; still, if he offered generously, Osso would ask more. “I can only offer what it is worth, thirty florins a cask.”
Osso gave Etzwane a cold glance. Ifness lounged indifferently against the trap. Osso said, “That is not enough.”
Ifness said, “It is ample. Bring forth the wine.”
Osso examined Ifness. “Who are you?”
Ifness looked unsmilingly off over the valley. Presently he said, “In due course the Faceless Man will move against the Roguskhoi. I will inform him of your refusal to cooperate.”
“I have refused nothing,” rasped Osso. “Give me your sixty florins, then go to the door of the storeroom.”
Etzwane paid over the coins. Two casks of wine were rolled forth and loaded into the back of the trap. Etzwane ran over to the chemical storehouse, looked along the lines of jugs and packets. Which would serve his purpose best? He did not know.
Ifness entered the shed. He glanced along the shelf and selected a cannister. “This will serve best. It has no remarkable flavor and is highly toxic.”
“Very well.” They returned to the trap.
“I will be gone at least six hours,” said Etzwane. “If possible, I will bring back the trap, but as to this —”
“I paid a large deposit for the use of the trap,” said Ifness. “It is a valuable piece of equipment.”
With compressed lips, Etzwane brought forth his pouch. “Will two hundred florins suffice? Or as many as you wish, to sixteen hundred.”
Ifness climbed into the seat. “Put away your florins. I will come along to protect my interests.”
Wordlessly Etzwane sprang aboard; the trap moved off up Mirk Valley. From the terraces of the temple the Chilites stood watching until the trap passed from view.
Chapter VIII
The road was little more than a pair of wheel-tracks beside the Mirk River. To either side were flats overgrown with rich green bandocks, each plant raising a single pale blue spine which flicked at passing insects. Along the river grew willows, alders, clumps of stately dark blue mitre-plants. Signs of the Roguskhoi were evident: odd articles of female clothing; on three occasions the corpses of old women, harried beyond their capacity; and in one dreary little heap, the corpses of six infants, evidently pulled from their mothers and dashed to the ground.
Ifness drove at the best pace the road allowed: the trap bounced, bumped, swung from side to side, but still moved three times the best possible speed of the Roguskhoi and the women.
Ifness asked after a few minutes, “Where does the road lead?”
“Up to Gargamet Meadow — that’s what the Chilites call it. It’s the plantation where they grow their galga bush.”
“And how far to Gargamet Meadow?”
“Five or six miles from here, at a guess. I would expect the Roguskhoi to stop at Gargamet Meadow for the night.”
Ifness pulled in the pacers. “We don’t want to overtake them in this gully. Have you poisoned the wine?”
“I’ll do so now.” Etzwane climbed into the rear of the trap and poured half of the cannister into each keg.
The suns passed behind the western slope; the valley began to grow dim. A sense of imminence pressed down on Etzwane; the Roguskhoi could not be too far ahead. Ifness drove with great caution; to blunder into a Roguskhoi rear-guard would not serve their purposes. Ahead the road passed through a notch with tall coral-trees silhouetted on the sky at either side. Ifness stopped the cart; Etzwane ran ahead to reconnoiter. The road, passing through the notch, swung around a clump of purple-pear trees, then eased out upon a flat. To the left loomed a grove of dark bawberries; to the right the galga plantation spread: sixty acres of carefully-tended vines. Beside the bawberry grove a pond reflected back the lavender sky; here the Roguskhoi marshaled their captives. They had just arrived; the women were still moving as the Roguskhoi directed, with great roaring commands and sweeps of their huge arms.
Etzwane signaled back to Ifness, who brought the trap forward to the clump of purple-pears. With pinched nostrils Ifness looked across the flat. “We can’t be too transparent in our scheme,” he told Etzwane. “We must contrive natural movements.”
Etzwane’s nerves began to draw and grate. He spoke in a high-pitched rasping voice: “Any minute they’ll start in on the women! They can hardly contain themselves.”
Indeed, the Roguskhoi now surrounded the women, making tremulous motions, surging toward the shrinking huddle, then drawing back.
Ifness inquired, “Can you ride a pacer?”
“I suppose so,” said Etzwane. “I’ve never tried.”
“We will drive across the meadow furtively, as if hoping to evade attention. As soon as they see us — then you must be quick, and I as well.”
Etzwane, terrified but desperately resolved, nodded to Ifness’ instructions. “Anything, anything … We must hurry!”
“Haste provokes disaster,” chided Ifness. “We have just arrived; we must take account of every circumstance.” He appraised and considered another ten seconds, then drove out on the edge of the meadow, and turned toward the plantation, away from the bawberry grove. They moved in full view of the Roguskhoi, should one by chance remove his glance from the ashen-faced women.
They drove a hundred yards, attracting no attention; Ifness nodded in satisfaction. “It would seem now as if we are hoping to escape their notice.”
“What if they don’t see us?” asked Etzwane in a thin voice he hardly recognized as his own.
Ifness made no response. They drove another fifty yards. From the Roguskhoi came a yell, hoarse yet wild, with a peculiar crazy timbre that started up the hairs behind Etzwane’s neck.
“They have seen us,” said Ifness in a colorless voice. “Be quick now.” He jumped down from the cart with no undue haste and unsnapped the traces from one of the pacers; Etzwane fumbled with the straps of the other pacer. “Here,” said Ifness, “take this one. Climb upon its back and take the reins.”
The pacer jerked at the unaccustomed weight and lowered its head.
“Ride for the road,” said Ifness. “Not too fast.”
Twenty of the Roguskhoi lumbered
across the meadow, eyes distended, arms flailing and pumping: a fearful sight. Ifness ignored them. He snapped loose the traces on the second pacer, cut short the reins, tied them deliberately, jumped upon the pacer’s back. Then, kicking it in the ribs, he sent the beast loping after Etzwane.
The Roguskhoi, sighting the casks, forgot the fugitives; with hardly a pause in their stride they lifted the tongue of the trap; cavorting in particularly grotesque fashion, they drew it back across the meadow.
In the shadow of the purple-pears Ifness and Etzwane halted the pacers. “Now,” said Ifness, “we must wait.”
Etzwane made no reply. The Roguskhoi, abandoning the women, swarmed around the trap. The casks were broached; the Roguskhoi drank with hoarse bellows of approval.
In a strained voice Etzwane asked, “How long before the poison acts?”
“So much poison would kill a man within minutes. I hopefully assume that the Roguskhoi metabolism is similar.”
The two watched the encampment. The wine had been totally consumed. With no evidence either of sickness or intoxication the Roguskhoi turned upon the women. Each rushed into the whimpering group and without regard for age or condition seized a female and began to tear away clothing.
Ifness said: “The moment has come.”
Several of the Roguskhoi had stopped short to gaze uncomprehendingly at the ground. Slowly they touched their abdomens, their throats, drew their fingers across their naked red scalps. Others displayed similar symptoms; the women, gasping and sobbing, crawled away in random directions, like insects poured from a bottle. The Roguskhoi commenced to writhe, to dance a strange slow ballet; they raised a crooked leg, clamped knee against abdomen, hopped, then repeated the antic on the opposite leg. Their faces sagged, their mouths hung pendulous.
Suddenly, in terrible rage, one cried out a word incomprehensible to Etzwane. The others shouted the same word, in grotesque despair. One of the Roguskhoi dropped to his knees, and slowly crumpled to the ground. He began to work his arms and legs like a beetle turned on its back. Certain of the women who had almost reached the bawberry grove, began to run. The movement stimulated the warriors to frenzy. Staggering, reeling, they lurched in pursuit, flailing with their bludgeons. Screaming, sobbing, the women ran this way and that; the Roguskhoi jumped among them; the women were caught and beaten to the ground.
The Roguskhoi began to topple, one after the other. Ifness and Etzwane stepped out upon the meadow; the last Roguskhoi erect noticed their presence. He snatched out his scimitar and hurled it. “Take care!” cried Ifness and sprang nimbly back: the scimitar whirled murderously through the air, but curved to the side and slashed into the dirt. With renewed dignity Ifness once more stepped forward, while the last Roguskhoi fell to the ground.
Ifness said, “The trap appears to be unharmed. Let us reclaim it.”
Etzwane looked at him, face blank with horror. He made a sound in his throat, moved forward a step, then halted. The features of the women had been blurred: by motion, by distance. Almost all he had known. Some had been kind, some had been beautiful; some had laughed, some had been sorrowful. With his poison he had contributed to the massacre, still — what else, what else?
“Come along,” said Ifness brusquely. “Lead your pacer.” He marched across the meadow, never troubling to look back.
Etzwane followed sluggishly, forcing his feet to move.
Arriving at the Roguskhoi camp, Ifness inspected the bodies with fastidious interest. The Roguskhoi still made small movements: twitches, jerks, clenched digging with the fingers. Etzwane forced himself to look here and there. He noticed the body of his sister Delamber: dead. Her face had been smashed almost beyond recognition; Etzwane recognized first the red-gold glints of her hair … He wandered across the field. There was Eathre. He fell down on his knees beside her and took her hands. He thought she still lived, though blood oozed from both her ears. He said, “It is Etzwane: your son Mur. I am here. I tried to save you, but I failed.”
Eathre’s lips moved. “No,” he thought to hear her say, “you didn’t fail. You saved me … Thank you, Mur …”
Etzwane dragged branches and boughs from the bawberry woods, stacked them high; he had no spade to dig a grave. He placed the bodies of Eathre and Delamber on the pyre, and placed more branches to lean around and over. He needed much wood; he made many trips.
Ifness had been otherwise occupied. He harnessed the restive pacers to the trap and repaired the reins. Then he turned his attention to the Roguskhoi. He examined them closely, with frowning concentration. To Etzwane, preoccupied, they seemed much alike: muscular, massive creatures, a head taller than the average man, with a skin hard and sleek as copper. Their features, which might have been hewn with an axe, were contorted and twisted, like those of a demon-mask: probably the effect of the poison. They grew no hair, on head or body; their costumes were almost pitifully meager: black leather crotch-pieces, a belt from which hung their bludgeons and scimitars. Ifness took up one of the scimitars and examined the gleaming metal with interest. “No product of Shant here,” he mused. “Who forged such metal?”
Etzwane had no answer; Ifness placed the scimitar in the back of the trap. The cudgels likewise interested him. The handles were seasoned hardwood, eighteen inches long; the heads were iron balls studded with two-inch points: terrible weapons.
Etzwane finally completed the pyre and set it afire on four sides. Flame licked up into the air.
Ifness had taken upon himself a grisly investigation. With his knife he had slit open the abdomen of one of the Roguskhoi. Blackish-red intestines roiled out; Ifness moved them aside with a stick; with nostrils fastidiously pinched, he continued his inspection of the creature’s organs.
Dusk had come to the meadow. The pyre burnt high. Etzwane did not care to tarry longer. He called to Ifness: “Are you ready to leave?”
“Yes,” said Ifness. “I have one small further task.”
While Etzwane watched in utter astonishment, Ifness selected the corpses of six women; deftly cutting off the battered heads, he took the six torcs. Going to the pond he washed torcs, knife and hands, and returned to where Etzwane stood by the trap, now unsure of his own sanity.
Ifness seemed brisk and cheerful. He stood back, to watch the flames from the pyre lick high into the gathering darkness. “It is time to go,” said Ifness.
Etzwane climbed into the seat of the trap. Ifness turned the pacers across the meadow. Etzwane suddenly signaled him to a halt. Ifness pulled up the pacers; Etzwane jumped to the ground. He ran back to the pyre, extracted a burning brand. This he carried to the galga plantation and fired the foliage, which was dense, dry, heavy with resin. Flames surged up through clouds of black smoke. In grim delight Etzwane stood back to watch, then he ran back to the trap.
Ifness had no comment to make; Etzwane was unable to sense either approval or disapproval, but did not care particularly.
Leaving the meadow they halted and looked back at the two fires. The galga patch lit the sky; the pyre glowed ruby red. Etzwane turned away, blinking. The fires were the past; when the fires died to ashes, the past would be gone …
Down the dark valley moved the trap, by the light of the Schiafarilla. The shuffle of hooves, the creak of harness, the soft scrape of wheels were the only sounds; they magnified the silence. Once or twice Etzwane looked back, to watch the red glow slowly fading. At last he could see it no more; the sky was dark. He turned in the seat and gazed somberly ahead.
In a quiet and formal voice, Ifness asked, “Now that you have studied the Roguskhoi, what is your opinion?”
Etzwane said, “They must be mad or demon-possessed. In a sense they are pitiable. But they must be destroyed.”
Ifness said reflectively, “I find myself in agreement with you. The cantons of Shant are highly vulnerable. The Chilites must now change beyond recognition or disappear.”
Etzwane tried to see Ifness’ face in the starlight. “You can’t believe this is unfortunate?”
“I regret the passing of any unique organism; there has never been such a human adaptation before, in all the history of the race; there may never be again.”
“What of the Roguskhoi: I suppose you’d be sorry to see them destroyed!”
Ifness gave a small quiet laugh. “Rather than the Roguskhoi themselves, I fear what they may represent. To such an extent that I have been forced to compromise my principles.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Etzwane shortly.
Ifness said in a grave voice, “As you know, I travel here and there across Shant, according to the urgencies of my profession. I see many circumstances, some happy, others grievous, but by the very nature of my affairs I may never involve myself.”
Into Etzwane’s mind came the memory of his first encounter with Ifness. “Not even to help a small boy escape the cannibal ahulphs?”
Ifness turned to peer through the darkness. “You were that boy?”
“Yes.”
Ifness was silent for several minutes. Then he said, “You have a dark and brooding streak in your nature which persuades you against your best interests. By resurrecting an episode ten years old you risk offending me; what benefit do you derive?”
Etzwane spoke in a detached voice. “I have long resented that placid man who was willing to let me die. To express myself is a relief and a pleasure. I suppose that is the benefit which you asked about. I don’t care a fig whether or not you are offended.” Now that he had started talking he found that he could not stop. “All that I have hoped and worked for is gone. Who is to blame? The Roguskhoi. Myself. The Faceless Man. The Chilites. All of us are to blame. I should have come sooner. I try to excuse myself: I had insufficient funds, I could not have anticipated the Roguskhoi raid. Still, I should have come sooner. The Roguskhoi — they are mad things; I am glad I poisoned them; I would gladly poison the entire race. The Chilites, whom you mourn: I don’t care a fig for them either. The Faceless Man: there is another matter! We have trusted him to protect us; we pay his imposts; we wear his torc; we follow, as we must, his edicts. To what end? Why has he not acted against the Roguskhoi? It is disheartening, to say the least!”